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Well last night I got out under the stars and gave the mount a tryout. The starGPS unit I have doesn't work with the unit but thats no loss.
Firstly the handpaddle has a small light at the back (red) which is very usefull for finding dropped things. It and the screen go dark after about a minute of non-use which is very handy. The mount has a few requirements to be accurate for gotos. Like all dumb beasts this one has to have a particular side pointed due South and the scope oriented in a totally vertical position. Easily done with good compass and level. Then just turn the beast on and do a two star alignment. The mount has a small bubble level which was accurate and used to level the cube (mount). Actually I was quite surprised, as if you go through this routine then it placed the object usually within the field of view of a 20mm eyepiece of my 80mm refractor.
I was pleasantly surprised and it hummed and whistled its way all night long on a 12v battery with +ve pin connections. Tracking was very good. Had no problems focussing at high magnification as I was gently using a 10:1 focusser to good effect. Good old WO machining makes life great. If you have too big a momentum of arm at the mount it makes it more difficult to focus but a short scope, absolutely no problem.
I had said earlier that you can't use it in a straight Alt/Az form. I was wrong. The way you do it is to slightly loosen the mount bolt for az and adjust the Alt tension with the large knob on the side. Very easy to use in that configuration. Just swing it around to where you want to view then tighten the knobs for tracking.
I must say that for the money, I'm stoked that I have a very, very portable Alt/Az goto mount for my widefield refractor that will work on batteries (8xAA) or mains or 12v battery. The tripod can breakdown even further for easy transport. So next time I go to my brothers farm and its dark skies thanks to this mount that I can easily take in hand luggage with my scope. If I want to seriously upgrade the database it then I just purchase another handset for ~$100 but I don't think I will. Just keep it simple. If you add objects to the handset ie comets asteroids or user objects, then they are retained in memory when the handset is switched off as is the time and location, so you dont have to re-enter it all again.
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